M1 Mac Improvements

V-Ray V-Ray for SketchUp General
1

I tried rendering the same scene, an interior lit by an HDRI, before and after upgrading to the new V-Ray. Old version rendered in 7 minutes, new version took 6 minutes 15 seconds. I’d have to repeat the test a few times to know if these results would be consistent.

Both with Sketchup 2021 on an M1 Mac.

But I’m wondering if this is the sort of improvement we should expect, e.g. “not a big difference, but every bit helps”? Or anything else we should do to enable full Apple silicon improvements?

2

Hi @dwellingworks ,

SketchUp 2021 does not support the M1 processors natively and runs in Rosetta mode.
The same goes for V-Ray 5 for SketchUp, update 2.3 installed for SU 2021. It’ll run in Rosetta mode as part of the SketchUp’s process.

The new SU 2022 runs on the M1 natively and that is what you have to test with.
When you run V-Ray 5, update 2.3 in it, it is also going to work in native mode.

I hope this makes sense,
Konstantin

3

Hi Konstantin,

Thanks for this information, that’s helpful to know.

For those of us not in a position to upgrade to SU 2022 at this time, is it possible to use an exported .vrscene, and run a native M1 render from command line or other standalone tool included in V-Ray 5 for SketchUp?

4

Hi dwellingworks,

For those of us not in a position to upgrade to SU 2022 at this time, is it possible to use an exported .vrscene, and run a native M1 render from command line or other standalone tool included in V-Ray 5 for SketchUp?
I believe that V-Ray standalone (the one that is included in the latest update) should run in native mode if you fire it up outside of SketchUp.
I’ll have to check with the developers if that’s the case and I’ll get back to you.

Konstantin

5

Thanks Konstantin,
Whike you’re checking in to whether it runs in native mode, I’m looking for documentation on how to invoke the standalone renderer with a vrscene file, since this could be helpful regardless. I didn’t find any info, can you point me to any instructions on that?

6

Hello @dwellingworks

I tested with a .vrscene exported from SketchUp 2020. On my side the V-Ray standalone worked in native Apple mode without Rosetta 2.
Actually, you can test it yourself.
Start. the standalone V-Ray in here /Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/V-Ray for SketchUp/extension/vrayappsdk/bin/vray.bin through the Terminal and after that go in the Activity Monitor > under CPU > Kind and see if the process runs in Apple mode(Native) or Intel mode(using Rosseta 2).

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7

You can do the following:

  1. Install the latest update (for any SketchUp version)
  2. Export a vrscene file
  3. Using Terminal navigate to the following location “Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray for SketchUp/extension/vrayappsdk/bin”
  4. Write the following
    ./vray.bin -sceneFile=
  5. Drag and drop the vrscene file in the terminal. It should looke like this:
    ./vray.bin -sceneFile=/Users/user/Documents/test.vrscene
  6. Hit Enter - the scnene will be rendered with V-Ray standalone
  7. If you do the same but add -rtEngine=5 at the end the CUDA engine is going to be used
    ./vray.bin -sceneFile=/Users/user/Documents/test.vrscene -rtEngine=5

Let me know if you experience any issues,
Konstantin

8

Thanks Konstantin and Slavcho, yes this is working great for me and is definitely rendering natively (ARM)!

It seems like it would also be easy to automate this process.

My only question now is how to control render settings. It’s not using quality settings from the original scene.

1. Is there a way to specify a .vropt file for the standalone renderer?
2. If not, what is the parameter to control quality preset or noise threshold? I’m seeing in the help there’s a parameterOverride option e.g. parameterOverride=“SettingsImageSampler::type=3”, the question is what’s the parameter name.
3. Is it also possible to enable de-noising in standalone render, or do you need to do that manually afterwards e.g. using tools/vdenoise.bin?

9

This seems like a clunky workaround for something that should be implemented inherently. Both SKP and Vray now offer Apple Silicone support on their latest software, but launching the newest Vray from the newest Sketchup is still Intel for me, including Vray Vision :frowning:

I’m running:
SKP v22.0.315
Vray v5.20

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10

Hi benjamin_chaykin,

The actual V-Ray Rendering process is part of the SketchUp application and runs in native mode.
NeUI which is basically the asset editor is still Intel.
The same goes for Vision.
We will make both M1 compatible as soon as it is technically possible.
In the meantime, however, I don’t think you’ll experience any slowdowns because of that.
The NeUI is mostly UI and Vision uses your GPU for the heavy lifting.

I hope that makes sense,
Konstantin

11

@dwellingworks
Quality settings are saved in the .vrscene file. So if you set the quality slider to high and export vrscene in the standalone cmd/terminal version of V-Ray the image will be rendered with high settings.
As for how to further control the V-Ray standalone setting please check the doc page below;
https://docs.chaos.com/display/VNS/V…d+Line+Options

12

Thanks for this information, Slavcho. I’m not sure why the first time it seemed to be using different quality settings, but I’m happy to say it is working well for me now.